Gardening is its own infuriating design challenge. You fret and you rethink and you second-guess yourself constantly, and then for one delirious, thrilling moment something blooms and you feel utterly triumphant. And then it dies and you are back where you started. You feel like a failure, outwitted by nature. And by rain, or the lack of it. And by that ultimate conspiracy, weeds — endless, unconquerable weeds — like an army in perpetual attack mode. What once seemed a heavenly pursuit now seems beyond hopeless, and therein lies its magic: gardening is the most comprehensively satisfying of design challenges, because when it works you feel like God.
And when it doesn’t work, you want to dig a hole in the garden and bury your head in it.